Mercedes Rookie Antonelli Is Showing Off His True Potential

This was never going to be an easy rookie F1 season at Mercedes for Kimi Antonelli, and along the way, the Italian teenager has faced a few lows. At the last two events in Brazil and Las Vegas, however, he has made a significant step and shown signs of real class.

Not that it has been a bad season up to this point. For the most part, he’s been overshadowed by teammate George Russell, who is in his seventh season and really getting into stride. You would expect the more experienced Englishman to be ahead most of the time.

The consensus has been that if Antonelli really is the generational talent that the team believes him to be, there would be races where he showed something truly special, in the way that the likes of Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, and Max Verstappen did in their early days.

Pole for the Miami sprint race back in May was a positive, but then Antonelli had a frustrating run through the summer where he struggled even to finish in the top 10, with third place in Montreal – behind winner Russell – a rare high. What made that run curious was that he knew all the European tracks from F2, and had tested F1 cars at several of them, and thus he started each weekend with that knowledge.

In Zandvoort, he made his life harder by spinning off in FP1 and losing valuable track time. The same happened at Monza, a year after he crashed on his public F1 debut. In the aftermath of his ninth-place finish in the Italian GP, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff described his performance that weekend as “underwhelming,” while chiding him for the practice incident.

If the very public criticism in Monza was intended to be a wake-up call for the youngster, it worked. Together with the team, he also formulated a more focused approach to pre-race homework in the simulator, and it paid off with solid races to fourth in Baku, fifth in Singapore, and sixth in Mexico – where he crucially finished ahead of Russell.

The Sao Paolo weekend saw a breakthrough step with a pair of well-judged second places, both from second on the grid after outpacing Russell in qualifying. In the sprint race, he chased winner Lando Norris home, and then in the main event, he held off a charging Max Verstappen in the closing stages. He was racing the World Championship contenders – and looking like he was born to do it.

“The execution was faultless at the end, being able to fight off Max on a newer and softer tire,” said Wolff after the Interlagos race. “That was really strong, and testament to what's to come."

As with previous highs like Miami and Montreal, this was a track he had not sampled in F2 or in F1 testing, and yet he shone. Wolff gave an interesting explanation when asked by Road & Track about that intriguing anomaly.

“I think it's also managing his own expectations,” he said. “He's so young. He's just 19 years old. You come to a track where you know that you've performed very well in the past, some of the European ones, and then you're on the back foot. You have a sensational teammate that is as good as it gets... And I think coming to a track that you don't know is almost like less pressure. Your expectations are lower, everybody else's expectations are lower, the fan pressure is less than some of the European races. And I think that plays a big role."

Las Vegas was another unfamiliar venue for Antonelli, and it provided another sign of things to come. Having qualified only 17th after not getting a good final lap in during the chaotic wet Q1 session, he pulled off a surprise strategy. Given soft tires in the hope that he could make up ground at the start, he pitted for hards after just two laps during a brief virtual safety car interlude.

That dropped him out of the pack, and with clean air, he could run quickly. His good progress as others ahead pitted was tempered by the news of a 5-second penalty for moving on the grid before the lights went out, although the offence was barely noticeable in replays. The team then decided to go for Plan B, which meant no second stop, keeping him out on those tires, and taking the penalty at the end rather than in the pits.

He thus ran a remarkable 48 laps on that set of Pirellis, with Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc chasing him hard for fourth place in the closing stages. Keep his tires in good shape over such a long stint, while being pressured by a title contender in Piastri, was no easy feat.

"I was talking to the tires the last 20 laps, every lap on the straight,” he joked afterwards. “I was just asking them to please hold on until the end. I was a bit concerned with the graining halfway through the race, but eventually once I was in free air, especially the last 10 laps, and also thanks to some advice that I got from the team on driving, the graining started to clean up a little bit, and we were able to just hold on. And actually, the times kept getting faster and faster. It was just a shame we started so far back,”

Piastri got close enough to be within the 5-second penalty range, but Leclerc didn’t quite manage it, so after the flag Antonelli dropped from fourth to fifth – still an impressive performance from a P17 start. A video clip showing winner Verstappen’s surprised reaction to learning where the youngster had finished underscored the impressive day.

“I think starting P17, pretty much on the defense with an aggressive stop at the beginning, I'm not sure that we thought it was realistic,” said Wolff afterwards. “But then he went quicker and quicker and quicker, and cleared the graining and at the end a super well deserved P5, even with the penalty. So don't know what that could have been starting from a better position."

A few hours later, the disqualifications of the two McLarens moved him up to third in the final results. That was a useful bonus, but the original P5 was still a worthy result, and the way he earned it showed that he’s getting there.

“He's 19 years old, and we always said that the first season can be difficult,” said Wolff. “And that's what we've seen at times. He's been parachuted in one of the big teams, hasn't known many of the Grands Prix, and the pressure that comes upon him, and that's what I expected in terms of trajectory.”

“Next year is going to be completely different," he noted. "The cars are new for all of the drivers, not only for him. He's been at the circuits, he's traveled, he's kind of experienced the pressures that have come up on you when you're a driver, he's going to be one year older and more mature, so it's all according to plan.”

As the man who made the call to replace the departing Lewis Hamilton with a teenager, Wolff could be forgiven for enjoying a quiet smile. From that “underwhelming” performance in Monza just 11 weeks ago the progress has been impressive.

"I never questioned that decision, actually throughout the season,” said Wolff. “Because we've always said that we expected it to be full of ups and downs and a moment of brilliance, and then a moment where you want to tear your hair out. And so this is not the end of the development. This is still very, very early stages. And I hope we'll see more of Kimi next year for solid performances, and then in the many years to come.”

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